Completely stuck! Need help with what next after windows XP

ThemeOne

It can often be the oldies that do better with more complicated systems!

Daz2009

I use ubuntu on a machine with a lot less power than yours and it runs fine.
Honestly,there isn't that much difference between ubuntu and windows,when it comes to the interface,you'll get used to it within a few days.
All those saying not to worry,keep using XP,you keep burying your heads in the sand.I predict you'll be coming on here in a couple of months time asking for help because your machine is infected or won't boot

debitcardmayhem

Daz2009 wrote: »

I use ubuntu on a machine with a lot less power than yours and it runs fine.
Honestly,there isn't that much difference between ubuntu and windows,when it comes to the interface,you'll get used to it within a few days.
All those saying not to worry,keep using XP,you keep burying your heads in the sand.I predict you'll be coming on here in a couple of months time asking for help because your machine is infected or won't boot

Probably unlikely, but the point made earlier in the thread by giraffe69 about future connections re hardware is very valid. I would personally recommend closed's suggestions (up to a point) but in my case I would install a light version of Linux and run XP as a virtual machine underneath that(memory permitting eg 2 GB should cope) and turn off most of the stuff in Linux that you don't need. My laptop has 8GB and can happily , well for me, cope with 1 W7 and 1 W8.1 each with 2GB concurrently, but of course they are being used for Windows specific investigations mainly. I also can restore the Windows "partitions" (virtual disks) to a known state very quickly.

securityguy

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

I also can restore the Windows "partitions" (virtual disks) to a known state very quickly.

I think the problem in a lot of these situations is that people who are stuck on XP are stuck in a way which means they're not going to cope with complex solutions.

If I had to run XP for some reason (applications, hardware) what I'd do is run something modern as the host operating system, run VMWare or Virtualbox, install XP into a VM (either from scratch or with P2V) with my home directory coming in the host as a VMWare/Virtualbox shared folder. Once I'd configured the VM the way I wanted (it's a fixed set, right?) I'd then revert the whole thing to its original state every day, so anything bad that got in would be squelched.

That's not bombproof, as a virus which (say) lurks in Word documents would survive the restart. But such viruses are (a) a very old-fashioned and (b) would be detected by a virus scanner either in the guest or in the host operating system or, more probably, both.

But the fact that I'm in a position to run such a setup is actually why I'm not running XP in the first place (well, I am, for an ancient piece of hardware, but it doesn't connect to the outside world at all). I doubt that solutions involving virtualisation are viable for people who are currently running XP and worried about what to do next.

prowla

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Probably unlikely, but the point made earlier in the thread by giraffe69 about future connections re hardware is very valid. I would personally recommend closed's suggestions (up to a point) but in my case I would install a light version of Linux and run XP as a virtual machine underneath that(memory permitting eg 2 GB should cope) and turn off most of the stuff in Linux that you don't need. My laptop has 8GB and can happily , well for me, cope with 1 W7 and 1 W8.1 each with 2GB concurrently, but of course they are being used for Windows specific investigations mainly. I also can restore the Windows "partitions" (virtual disks) to a known state very quickly.

Yup - Virtualization all the way...

I'm on a Windows 7 PC in which I run some VMs under VMware Player.

I've also got a Ubuntu Linux PC in which I run a selection of VMs under VMware Player.

I've also got a Red Hat Linux PC in which I run a selection of VMs under KVM.

And I've also got a Mac in which I run a couple of VMs under VirtualBox.

And then I've got a Windows server PC with Hyper-V.

And did I mention my ESXi one?

emptybox

ThemeOne wrote: »

Based on the specs you mentioned you'd be fine running either W7 or 8 on both of them.

Both would run Windows 7 fine.
The Core2duo would run Windows 8. The P4 would depend entirely on which model it was, as to whether it was compatible with Win 8.

rock-y-beach

Thanks so much for all your help. I really appreciate it and we have decided what to do now

GunJack

rock-y-beach wrote: »

Thanks so much for all your help. I really appreciate it and we have decided what to do now

....and that is??........

OnAndUp

closed wrote: »

browsing protection
http://www.filehippo.com/download_sandboxie

antivirus
http://www.filehippo.com/download_avast_antivirus/
http://www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/

temp file cleanup
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

disk imaging backup
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat/Hard-Drive---External/subcat/-Portable-Hard-Drives
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat/Blank-CD,-DVD-and-Blu-Ray/subcat/DVD-Media?sort=price+ascending&q=dvd&page=1

I am still going to be using XP and am doing all of the above except the Sandboxie thing - never heard of that! Is that an important one that I should be doing too? Do you notice it ie. does it slow things down when you are browsing?

Thanks!

closed

try it and see, its a way of automatically undoing any changes made to the machine when surfing, including infections